Michael’s Reviews > Swann’s Way > Status Update

What do you think about this quote? I've been thinking about it for a while, and it is difficult for me to overcome my first instinct that it is an absolutely absurd thing to say - especially where Swann so clearly did choose to be "in love" and cultivated his obsession so purposely. But, then, I also recognize that I probably know nothing about love. If we're going with a smell test, though, this does not smell like it to me.

Which, I guess is also an irony that might be within this quote on its face. And, I do not think that people should fall in love with only people who are similar to them. I just think there is a closer relationship between "love" and "like" than Swann apparently does.

I keep thinking about this Jack Handy quote that I know I've posted before on here, but it seems so apropos to the book: "Love isn't something you can tie up and throw into a lake - that's called Houdini. Love is liking someone a lot."

I'm taking the cynical point of view that Proust does consider this a kind of love, and that Proust is trying to depict in excruciating detail the way some people actually DO come to believe they are in love. I've had the experience of liking someone's company, and liking what they do for my self-esteem, to the point where I was able to find a physical appeal that I hadn't recognize at first. And if I analyze it close enough, the mental transitions I went through during the falling-in-"love" process weren't as far away from Swann as I would like them to have been. At the time I had no idea what to call it, and I might have called it love. (This was more than 10 years ago, so my perspective has changed a lot.)

So, I think Proust is giving us a close look at Swann's emotional transitions to a degree that Swann himself is not privy to, and I think it LOOKS more intentional that Swann would feel it was. And I think Proust is showing this as an example of how some people DO fall in love.

I don't know much about Proust himself, but I feel that he's mocking love in the same mean-spirited way that he has been mocking the society as a whole.

Yeah, that seems fair. I guess it frustrates me to see people give up all responsibility for their choices in what seems to me to be such a deliberate way. It seems cowardly. Not in the sense that I think it is inaccurate in the way it's written here, but just that it makes me angry when I see it in life, and it makes me angry to read about it here. But, then, at the same time, I do kind of see how there is an involuntary part of love, like with disease, and, in fact, I have made this exact comparison, but to getting over someone, not to falling in love. I guess I just think the whole explanation of Odette's unworthiness smells more like bullshit than love.

I hadn't really read the narrator as mocking people in a mean-spirited way, but I guess that is the common reading. He reminds me SO MUCH, like UNCANNILY, of one of my best friends in law school, so I can't really think of him as mean spirited. Even though, I actually know for a fact that some of my friends were really convinced of his mean spiritedness during our first year. Maybe mean in result, but not mean spirited. I keep wanting to tell him how much this book reminds me of him, but I feel like it will carry an insult that I don't intend.

But, then, at the same time, I do kind of see how there is an involuntary part of love, like with disease

Well, I don't think Proust is necessarily excusing Swann's actions because he is in love. In this quote, I think the statement is more general than that, making a statement about how easy it is for someone who isn't in a relationship to use rationality in looking at it. Whatsername doesn't feel Odette is worth Swann's time for primarily social and logical reasons, but these don't mean shit to Swann at this point, because he's already reached a ridiculous level of obsession.

I guess this is one of the instances where I see Proust mocking the characters: we can see how contrived the beginnings of this relationship were, and we can see how unnecessarily Swann has ended up being stuck in this really unhealthy pattern. Yet even at this point, we see Swann looking down his nose at others who are exactly like he is (the monocle part of the party scene), and we see the irony in this since he has done a really awful job of evaluating EVERYONE in the story, from the Verdurins to Odette, and is in no position to think of others as shallow.

The fact that he gives us so many reasons to NOT empathize with even his least shallow characters makes it feel quite ironic and mean-spirited to me. Or perhaps saying his approach is slightly brutal makes more sense, since I believe he sees himself as a part of this same society, and not being in any way above it. He's reflecting in a somewhat brutal way how he sees people thinking, acting and feeling.

This is all guessing, and I know nothing about the author. It's just how it feels to me.

Michael wrote: "Whatsername doesn't feel Odette is worth Swann's time for primarily social and logical reasons, but these don't mean shit to Swann at this point, because he's already reached a ridiculous level of obsession."

Yeah, I agree with this for sure. I just think that Swann himself makes it clear over and over again that he doesn't feel like Odette is worth his time for social, logical, physical, or any other reasons; he's kind of a jerk to her; and he's stalking her in a somewhat threatening way (mostly in that it seems like he has total control over her financial situation and no regard for that kind of power). And to me, the way the quote sounds is kind of like, "Oh garsh, those outsiders just don't understand love," made me surprised by it a little. Maybe I'm surprised because the narrator seemed so cool in describing Swann as almost maniacally self-interested because of his obsession

I mean, I guess there is also the added level that I would feel more comfortable if Swann was like, "No, I really appreciate Odette's point of view and like the way she is, even though it is not similar to the way I was raised to be." It would feel more genuine to me for the narrator to then say, Look, some people can't step outside themselves to understand someone else's relationship. And in that case, the quote would make a ton of sense. But, it maybe threw me off because it seemed like the narrator endorsing Swann's form of love. I hadn't expected it. It doesn't make me like the book less, but it is interesting.

Michael wrote: "The fact that he gives us so many reasons to NOT empathize with even his least shallow characters makes it feel quite ironic and mean-spirited to me."

Ha! I guess that makes sense. I maybe don't think pointing out people's absurdities is mean, or at least when my friend does it, I know it is not mean-spirited, or mean in intent. I would agree with brutal, I guess. But, man, people are funny! I do wonder how much we are supposed to assume the narrator is an autobiographical character. I know that later, people call him Marcel, but are those descriptions supposed to be genuine memories? It seems like he is layering upon layer of evasiveness as to any solid theory on life. I guess that is one of the reasons I keep thinking about the quote. It seems like this moment where the narrator agrees with Swann to the exclusion of another character, where I hadn't expected him to agree.

It seems like this moment where the narrator agrees with Swann to the exclusion of another character, where I hadn't expected him to agree.

Ah, I see what you mean. But, because the protagonist seems to have a similar approach to women, I'm wondering if Proust is writing what he knows--what he actually experiences as a form of love. This would explain why he seems to be in Swann's camp during this scene. I might be judging him too soon, but I see Proust as someone with issues connecting with women. So far, he hasn't given us a real insight into the psyche of any female characters, and has spent a lot of time showing men obsessing over them, while the female characters stay vaguely drawn and emotionally distant (the majority of the time). I'm kind of hoping he proves me wrong about this and starts really developing some female characters soon.

I am not sure whether the protagonist is Proust or not, but the lack of a clear name, sense of his appearance, or anything else to go on makes it hard to distinguish between author and character. And I see the protagonist as having a very similar, warped approach to women as Swann (I see this a LOT in the last section of the book), so I'm wondering if Swann's story is foreshadowing what the protagonist is going to experience later. Especially given the title of the second book.

Yeah, that is an excellent point. I also think there was one part - I don't think I quoted it as a status update, but I think I have it marked somewhere - where he talks about an author using two different characters to mark two different times in the author's life. It was like, Red Flag!!1 I'm talking about meeeee! haha. It was smart, though.

Okay, off to finish it.

I love this passage and often think about it.

The way I read it, Swann is intended to be an entirely admirable character, and the fact that he falls in love with Odette and becomes obsessed with her is intended to be very tragic. I think you have to make allowances for the different society he's living in. If he were a contemporary figure, I would definitely interpret him differently.

I believe there is only one single place in the whole series where the narrator is explicitly called 'Marcel'.

(Oh man. I am so far behind you guys. I managed to get to about a hundred on the plane to the family wedding, but I haven't touched it since. Maybe this weekend I'll catch up and know what you are talking about! Yay!)

The way I read it, Swann is intended to be an entirely admirable character, and the fact that he falls in love with Odette and becomes obsessed with her is intended to be very tragic.

Hmm, that's a much different reading than I had. Swann is clearly a character Proust has empathy for, but at this point in the storyline he hasn't appeared tragic, and the detailed explanation of how his obsession started made it seem fairly comical. . . granted, I only know the beginning of the story. Perhaps, in order to stomach so many rich emo kids, I'm seeing more humor than Proust intended.

Ceridwen, you have a little time to catch up--with me, at least! I'm going to take a week or two before starting book 2, so I can finally finish The Satanic Verses and read some nonfiction.

Yeah, I am definitely not moving on to the next one for a little while. I maintain that I like the narrator because he is my friend from school, but I am still mad at Swann, so I need a little break.

I didn't finish last night because I had to correct 100 freaking multiple choice questions! Ugh! I started finishing it, but then I fell asleep.

Manny wrote: "The way I read it, Swann is intended to be an entirely admirable character, and the fact that he falls in love with Odette and becomes obsessed with her is intended to be very tragic. I think you have to make allowances for the different society he's living in. If he were a contemporary figure, I would definitely interpret him differently."

Yeah, I mean, I think this is a literal reading of how the narrator presents Swann's pathos, but to me it is clearly not what is happening in the story. I completely disagree that you have to make allowances for a different society. I think from Odette's point of view Swann would be pretty douchey and hypocritical, and she expresses that to him. And even though I agree that the narrator probably sees Swann's "falling in love" with Odette to be his tragic downfall, I have absolutely no sympathy for him about that since he deliberately decided to "fall in love" with her, knew her history and position in society, is equally sleazy as her and has no remorse for that. I also think that it is just objectively ridiculous that he basically starts out thinking her life is so charming and worldly, and then when they conflict with his plans he turns into a monster and gets all prudish-hand-wringing about what it means to his conveniences that she was sold as a child slave and has to have sex with men in order to buy food. What a baby!

And I don't think it is, like, society is more evolved now, so we see that Swann should have some kind of culpability for his choices. No. Obviously, the narrator's family felt like Swann was being an idiot, and they are not romanticizing helplessness in women the way the narrator does, so I think they are more reliable barometers.

Also, about Swann being admirable before he meets Odette, I think that the only time we see Swann before he meets Odette is at the very, very beginning of his story when he first meets Odette, right? And maybe at the very beginning of the Combray story? And that's when he's going around taking advantage of all the housemaids, yeah? And the one little kitchen maid gets pregnant (presumably) from him and has the infection from childbirth. So, even if he has to get some of his own back from Odette, I do not find that particularly tragic. The housemaid's story is much more objectively tragic, I think. And I do think including that story means that the narrator, or at least grown-up Proust, kind of gets the hypocrisy of Swann's dramatic reaction to Odette's life.

Well, I agree about the examination of multiple hypocrisies, and about how Swann, by most people's standards, does some fairly unpleasant things. But do bear in mind that Proust was an unrepentant snob who placed a high value on culture and exalted social connections, and also that his life was miserable due to his habit of falling for unsuitable people. I can't help feeling that Swann is a kind of idealized self-portrait and intended tragically. If only he'd married the Princesse de Laumes instead! She's so perfect for him. But no, he has to screw it all up by getting involved with this silly little demimondaine whom he'd only intended as a harmless distraction.

I know, you can't say this kind of thing today without irony. But I think you could in 1890s France.

I guess, I don't really understand the disagreement you have with what we were talking about. Are you just saying that you think it's more important to think about authorial intent than to react to the characters from our own perspectives or even from other perspectives that Proust presented?

Or are you saying that Swann isn't douchey because he gets an 1890s socialite pass on douchiness, and if Proust wouldn't have considered him douchey, then no one should consider him douchey? That seems like a suspect argument to me, partly because I think Swann's Way was first published in 1913, and partly because it just really doesn't make sense to me no matter when the book was published. I mean, clearly, I am not a rich white dude from France at the turn of the 20th Century (sorry if I'm shocking anybody with that revelation), so I am not reacting to Swann like someone of that description would. But, it also sounds to me like that explanation would accuse Proust of either being pretty blind in not seeing the hypocrisy, even though he explicitly wrote it out, or of being sinisterly willing to give people a pass based on gender and social status. Either one of those may be true, but I guess they would sort of surprise me and seem pretty dehumanizing of Proust.

I don't think the book tends to show Swann as thinking of Odette as a harmless distraction. There is one part, close to when this quote takes place, where it talks about how Swann had set out to fall in love with Odette and to devote himself to love. I certainly don't find Swann idealized, and I'm wondering what resonated to you about him as being admirable or idealized?

Obviously I'm not saying that your reaction to Swann is wrong. If you don't like him and find him antipathetic, that's a perfectly valid take on his character! My point is just that Proust, as far as I can see, did like him, and considers his fate a tragic one.

About "idealized": well, he incarnates many of the qualities Proust thought most important. He's extremely cultured, he has incredible social connections (he gets regular letters from the Prince of Wales, for crying out loud), he's witty in the understated French way that was fashionable at the time. We don't value these qualities as highly, but Proust did!

And yes, he's shot through with contradictions, just like his society, and at some level he does set out to fall in love with Odette. He just makes the mistake of thinking that he can do it as an aesthetic exercise, and not have it take over his whole life. But it's still tragic.

I know it sounds weird in today's terms, but I think the real tragedy we're meant to be appalled and moved by is this: because of Odette, Swann hangs around with the dull, low-status Verdurins instead of spending time with the Princesse de Laumes (later the Duchesse de Guermantes), who is superior to them in every way.

PS About the dates. As you say, published in 1913, but I think it's pretty clear that the action in Un Amour de Swann takes place a good deal earlier. As a reference point, the resignation of MacMahon (an important event in the story) was on 30 January 1879.

Well, I only mentioned the date because I thought you were referencing Proust's point of view and the point of view that would have seemed normal to him in writing the book. I guess, I'm still not totally clear whether you are basing your understanding of Proust's attitude toward Swann on some kind of extrinsic source that talks about Proust's intentions, or whether that is just how you feel in seeing Swann through the narrator's eyes.

I'm assuming the stuff about him pining for life with the Princesse is in later books because in this one he seemed pretty content to be unhappy. It seemed to me like, regardless of what he claimed, he liked Odette and he liked the drama of it all, or he would have left her like we know he left other people. That might not be healthy, but I don't find it particularly tragic because I think he fully chose it regardless of his protestations about slavery to love. I guess, I am fine with him choosing between my pity and my respect. At this point, I lean towards giving people my respect, but he is too objectively capable of making his own decisions and too lazy to deserve both.

It is like that part in the West Wing:

Sam: About a week ago I accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Toby: Really?
Sam: Yes.
Toby: You accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Sam: Call girl.
Toby: Accidentally.
Sam: Yes.
Toby: I don't understand, did you trip over something?

I do agree that, clearly, the young narrator idolized Swann, but I think the narrator as he describes Swann in Love is older and treats Swann differently than the young narrator. I think we talked more about him looking up to Swann in messages 6 and 7. But, I have definitely had people like that who were gods when I was young and became more and more human to me as I got older and understood their lives more fully. That was how I understood his descriptions of Swann.

I like the West Wing quote! But this kind of highlights an important point, which is that our attitudes to men sleeping with prostitutes are very different from the ones you'd associate with late 19th century France. In that society, it was considered quite normal, and wouldn't attract the same reactions we would experience. All rich men slept with women of the demi-monde, and they might experience sentimental attachments to them, but falling seriously in love with one of these women would be a terrible accident.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't feel you're paying enough attention to the cultural context. Though at the same time, yes, there is a level where he's exposing the whole rottenness of his world, and maybe in a way he is agreeing with you too.

So to summarize, I think Proust had highly conflicted feelings about all this stuff: he knew his society was rotten, but at the same time he loved it, and you need to look at both sides of that divide.

So, again, I am interested to hear what you are basing Proust's feelings on. I'm not challenging you when I say that, I just think it would give me a better idea of the resources available that talk about his thoughts on the works.

Manny wrote: "In that society, it was considered quite normal, and wouldn't attract the same reactions we would experience. All rich men slept with women of the demi-monde, and they might experience sentimental attachments to them, but falling seriously in love with one of these women would be a terrible accident."

I think this is very inaccurate, and while I will agree that there is and has always been tremendous social pressure on men to sleep with a lot of women and then treat them like shit, I do not think, historically, the women have considered it "quite normal," unless they were so demoralized as to have lost all sense of self. Clearly Odette, the women in the narrator's family, and, in general, the rest of the people in the book were not so demoralized. It makes a ton of sense to me that the narrator, an adolescent (and sometimes younger, probably) boy would be really awed and impressed by rich men sleeping with whomever they want, but I don't think that gives a sense of cultural norm. Or, maybe it does and Game of Thrones really is the cultural norm of America today.

I think we get our sense of historical norms, of the type you're so bothered that I won't totally defer, typically come from whatever the dominant culture is at the time. So, sure, if you're only going to consider what men think, in a time when women's voices are not very common in the social or political scene, then at the time of this book it was probably a great idea to sleep with all the women of "demi-monde" they wanted. But, it still doesn't mean that society, as including women, thought it was such a great idea or that it was an "accident." If you go to join a jumping-off-bridges party, it's probably not an accident when you jump off a bridge.

I'm not saying Swann shouldn't have gone with Odette at all or making some kind of 21st Century moralistic judgment on him, which I feel like your reference to today's attitude about prostitution indicates. I'm just saying that when this type of story happens now, it's not an "accident," and when it happened then, it was not an accident. Swann could spin it for himself, or maybe even others, that he didn't like Odette or choose her, but I think his actions show otherwise, and saying it is an accident sounds to me like calling him a moron, who simply must do what he can do, which I do not think is true of Swann.

I would like to reply at length, since you raise some really interesting points, but I need to get back to finishing an urgent conference paper :( So, very briefly, my picture of what French people thought was normal concerning sexual relations between rich society men and women of the demi-monde comes from reading quite a lot of novels... but, you are right, nearly all of them were by men. Ironically, one of the few novels I read that was written by a woman was François le Champi, and that was because it played an important part in this book! I should read more George Sand or Madame de Staël.

By the way, if you don't know the plot of François le Champi, look it up. You may be surprised.

It's cool, the goodreads summary says Willa Cather really liked Francois le Champi. You might think about putting a spoiler alert on your review, though.

Sparrow wrote: "It's cool, the goodreads summary says Willa Cather really liked Francois le Champi."

I had never even heard of Willa Cather, but now I am curious to read one of her books.

You might think about putting a spoiler alert on your review, though.

Good point. Done!

Manny wrote: "I had never even heard of Willa Cather"

Oh, she is my favorite writer. Not everyone loves her, though.